Lady Gaga’s ‘Applause’ Lyric Video: One Wild West Hollywood Night

On Monday, after rush-releasing her comeback single “Applause”
to combat leaks, she hit up West Hollywood hotspot Micky’s to shoot a lyric video for the track, then spent Tuesday editing the clip with the Haus of Gaga (while simultaneously promoting her multiple V magazine covers
and tweeting with Cher, mind you), in the hopes of premiering it Wednesday (August 14) afternoon.

Of course, not everything can go like Gaga, and, after promising the “Applause” vid would go online “momentarily,” her fans were left hanging for more than three hours (or “84 years”) before the clip actually appeared. Though they’d be the first to tell you that the finished product was worth the wait.

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Mostly because a lot of them are probably in it.

Gaga goes guerilla in the video, shooting most of it herself with a hand-held camera. She cavorts with her fans and clubgoers, gets up-close-and-personal with some fierce drag performers (who work the catwalk), and mouths several lyrics to the song, all while her face is painted up in makeup similar to the “Applause” cover
. In an earlier tweet, she encouraged her Little Monsters to show up for the shoot in a similar style, and a whole lot of them did just that, only adding another level of connection to the clip.

The whole thing feels very much like the recap of a very wild night, shot fast-and-loose with minimal edits and a whole lot of bare skin … it’s immediate and intimate and, well, that’s precisely the point.

In fact, unlike most other lyric videos — Katy Perry’s “Roar,”
for example — in “Applause,” the lyrics are almost secondary. Sure, they’re there, scrawled out on the screen in bright colors, but really, this one is about the fans: this was their night, and this is their song. And even if they had to wait a while to see “Applause” in all its glory, well, at least now they’ve got a memento of a night they’ll never forget. If they can even remember it, that is.